By Sushil Kutty
The second anniversary of the landmark transfer of money passed us last week and we didn’t even check the small change in our pockets. How mean can a people who got crisp new notes for soiled currency be? Modi now acknowledges that it was all a fraud played on innocent hoi polloi and that Modi has no face to face up to the truth staring him in the face – demonetisation was a scam!
Demonetisation won the BJP brute majority in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. Yet, it was clear, it did not unearth black money as intended to, only replaced a cash economy with a cashless economy.
Modi is probably taking a risk reminding the voter in Chhattisgarh of something he would rather forget. As far as the common man was concerned, demonetisation put fear in the hearts of ordinary men and women for whom ‘note-bandi’ was pregnant with the ‘ominous’ ring of no cash in the till. Poor guys and gals, their hearts beat hard thinking of whether there will be new currency enough to replace old ones they held in their trembling hands. Ordinary people don’t think in extraordinary ways.
Modi Monday linked demonetisation with National Herald to launch an attack on Rahul and Sonia Gandhi, telling a rally that but for demonetisation, unaccounted money in the hands of the rich wouldn’t have translated into money in jan-dhan accounts of the poor, who owe it his government for the bumper crop of jan-dhan accounts. ‘Note-bandi’ led to the opening of your bank accounts, he told the rally. It’s a risk he’s taking and there’s no gainsaying that ‘note-bandi’ strikes a sore note with the ordinary guy/gal in the queue at the voting booth.
That said, anti-incumbency is what Modi and Raman Singh are fighting and familiar faces do not ring true after a span of time and Raman Singh is a healthy specimen of anti-incumbency, his glowing cheeks proof of the pudding. He’s been in the chair for so long; people might want a change of face just for the heck of it. Rahul Gandhi is drawing crowds at his rallies and many of those listening to him must have stood in demonetized queues. Then, there is this duo of Mayawati-Ajit Jogi, who are in the field with ‘chillar’ to spare.
In Maoist-hit Bastar smartphones and mopeds are part of the electoral spoils for the voter. And isn’t it kind of sparing the best for the last, bloody encounters with the Red devils? Even as PM Modi went about introducing Chhattisgarhis of the benefits of demonetisation that might have escaped them, an encounter with Maoists was on in Bastar. What’s money in the bank for a man facing bullets? The question begs an answer. But Modi will not be generous, not on this question. He was speaking in Bilaspur as if he was on Planet Peace!
Close on the heels of demonetisation, there were reports of Maoists making bonfires in the jungles of Bastar of old currency that lost currency in the illegal arms markets after demonetisation. Kind of doesn’t answer where did all the money come from? Cash-strapped Urban Naxals cannot be the source, definitely.
At the end of the day, Modi, who opinion polls say will make all the difference between victory and defeat for Raman Singh, rides the risk of getting demonetized by the demonetisation he unleashed on the country in 2016, November 8, 8 pm sharp. (IPA Service)
The post PM Modi Now Faces A Demonetisation appeared first on Newspack by India Press Agency.
